Winter Storms, Waterfalls, & Holiday Lights

I can't believe that just last week Mark and I were running around on the Oregon Coast in an early celebration of my birthday. Normally, when we go to the coast, we visit the stretch between Florence and Newport. This time around, we went south to the North Bend area.

We visited Silver Falls and Golden Falls, located at the end of a windy, sometimes narrow, road following the Coos River to its tributaries. The atmospheric river fed the falls, and the falls were trying to return the favor with a fierce spray of mist. Even though it wasn't raining at the time of our visit, we both got soaked. The geology was interesting; we weren't quite sure where all of the house-sized boulders came from. The falls looked great, and I imagine that I would enjoy them on a hot, dry day.

Afterward, we found our way back at the Pacific and Shore Acres State Park. It's been about twenty years since I was at the Shore Acres Gardens, and all I recalled was a fountain with lion's head spouts (I remember them looking more like lions and less like lumps of corrosion). We took a path to the beach where the surf surged dramatically against the rocks. The day became increasingly grey. When we went to an overview, the wind picked up foam frothed up by the pounding surf about thirty feet below, swirled it around like a murmuration of birds, and dropped it around us like dirty clumps of New York snow. As I looked south, I saw armies of clouds slowly creeping north and dropping curtains of rain.

Mark arranged for us to view the holiday light show at Shore Acres, but as it wasn't quite time for the show to start, we killed some time finding a local fish market where we picked up some "cold" clam chowder (the clerk had just turned off the burner, and the chowder was still hot) and some smoked salmon. Then it was back to the garden's light show. And the rain.

We both enjoyed the lights (even if I did have to keep my camera under my coat to keep it from getting too wet), and thought the local groups who created the displays did a good job. I think our favorite displays involved fish or whales.

Lamps and Renders

Mark got me some remote controlled LEDs for valentine's day.  They have six LEDs on them, so they have multiple light points.  I think six points would show a single point cut out of a housing fairly well, but when I tried it with a star mesh similar to the rendered housing pictured to the left, the resulting shadows were kind of blurred together.

I tried putting one of the LED arrays into a mason jar and filling it with red tissue paper.  The result is nice, and Very Country Cute.

We had a paper lamp made for Chinese New Year, and it was a perfect example of form and function when I hung it over the LED array.

I think I'll try something Frank Lloyd Wright--a square lamp housing with a peaked roof and a simple line shape over an opaque white paper shade.  

Or maybe I can fire up the electric griddle and melt crayons into a pattern on wax paper and wrap the paper into a cylinder.

More as I try stuff....